The Wake of Tragedies

is usually a bad time to create new laws.

See: The Patriot Act.

I think a lot of things need to happen in regard to gun control in the US. Better education. Better regulation and enforcement of existing laws. A real national conversation about how to de-glorify guns. Better access to mental health. Better understanding of what triggers these shootings.

That being said, charging ahead with new laws in the face of tragedy often curtails rights and that's almost always a bad thing.

10. Maybe, but what will the consequences be? We still haven't and may never recover from

the 1994 elections. The AWB itself was irrelevant, but the whole Gingrich Congress came in on its passage.

I was there when California rushed through its three strikes law after that little girl was kidnapped and murdered. The law was/is a disaster and there are people serving life sentences with no parole for committing ridiculously petty crimes as a result. It didn't matter that to people at the time that the crime itself was so rare that similar horrors occurred less than once a decade, but everyone in the state is still paying for it.

2. Normally, I would agree

The spate of proposed laws after the Casey Anthony verdict were poorly thought out and had frightening implications that would have caused all kinds of unintended consequences that could potentially make criminals of innocent parents. But there have been so many gun massacres in this country that we are long overdue for some kind of gun-control legislation. :/ I live in Connecticut, and I am hoping that there will be laws passed after this.

14. That is true

Because people are reacting with emotion and not thinking them through. We do need some type of stricter gun-control laws (banning semi-automatic weapons seems to be a good start), but we also need to examine the cultural reasons these kinds of massacres are becoming so common in the first place. I don't have any answers, but this issue needs to be talked about and we as a country have got to stop kowtowing to the NRA and letting their agenda dominate the conversation.

21. Exactly. n/t

9. But during an ongoing crisis IS the time to legislate changes that stem the crisis

This is a crisis. Not isolated tragedies as you'd like to portray them, but a linked, connected, clearly caused and ongoing crisis. So when is the time?

Rights? They said the same thing during the early days of AIDS: can't close the bath houses! Civil liberties! And, meanwhile, thousands were infected in the bath houses, the band played on. It was a crisis. We act to change course in time of crisis, if we are responsible people. Oh, they said in 1981, in 1982: we don't know for sure, we shouldn't rush to judgment, and blah blah blah. But it wasn't an isolated tragedy, but an ongoing crisis.

Another one of these Gun Crisis mass shootings happened on goddamn TUESDAY for fuck's sake. There will be no respite.

"In the wake of tragedies" might not be a good time to make new laws - in some cases. But we're not dealing with isolated tragedies, but with an ongoing crisis, and during an ongoing crisis is precisely the motherfucking time to make new laws to end the crisis. precisely the time.

11. That May Be True

But it seems throughout history - even recent history - that bad laws get passed at times like this. Laws that are either "feel good" (don't really address the issue, like the former Assault Weapons Ban) or curtail rights (The Patriot Act). Is it possible to have a reasonable discussion on an issue like this? I mean, look no further than DU to see that we've got members supporting drone attacks on gun owners who refuse to give up their weapons.

12. I'm willing to experiment with that

It's better than the status quo.

Like I said, there were a lot of people shouting about the civil liberties of the bath houses during the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. The authorities were right to ultimately shut them down, though they did so three years too late. oddly, few people protested at that point. You see a history of bad laws. I see a history of good measures to address an ongoing crisis with a distinct cause: the completely irrational and bizarre attachment of some Americans to a free-for-all gun culture that actually fucking kills a lot of people. They are like those who insisted on the most dangerous sex in the bath houses even after they knew it was deadly: utterly irresponsible, and the polis, the state has to act for them because they are not responsible enough to change on their own.

We have a Gun Crisis, a gun death epidemic, and we must act, the quibbles of various irresponsible and irrational gun groups be damned. Nobody today thinks the cities were wrong to shut down the bath houses. Similarly, in 20 years, nobody will think the government was wrong for addressing our current Gun Crisis.